Nvidia quadro P2000 transcoding performances

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.32.6.7557
Player Version#: 1.32.6.7557

Hello,

I recently updated my virtualization hypervisor from an intel NUC to a DL 380 Gen8 server. I added an Nvidia Quadro P2000 card to this server.

In my NUC, Plex was smoothly handling hardware transcoding while hosted in a container on a virtual machine with passthrough to the integrated intel chipset.

I started by replicating this configuration on the DL380. I verified that the virtual machine hosting the container had the Nvidia 535 drivers installed and recognized the card. I passed the correct parameters through the Nvidia Docker runtime, and the container could see the card. However, every attempt at HEVC transcoding resulted in terrible performance (buffering for several minutes, choppy output). Nvidia-smi showed that the transcoding process was running and using only 3% of the GPU.

Tonight, I tried it in a dedicated virtual machine (without Docker) with PCI passthrough for the Nvidia card, and I got the same result: excessive buffering, terrible performance, and the GPU at 3% according to Nvidia-smi (which means the card is recognized). I even tried setting the temporary directory to /tmp (in RAM) with no improvement.

Direct playback has no problems. H264 transcoding, I can’t tell as all my library is in H265/HEVC format.

Did I miss something, or could the used graphics card I purchased have an issue?

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Depending on the actual NUC model and the CPU type within that server, the “update” might not have been one. At least as far as Plex is concerned.

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The NUC is a NUC8i7BEH with a 4-core Intel(R) Core™ i7-8559U CPU @ 2.70GHz processor, while the DL 380 G8 has 2 10-core Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2690 v2 @ 3.00GHz processors. It’s true that regarding transcoding, if I hadn’t added the Nvidia P2000 card, I would have clearly lost performance, but with it, I still expected it to be able to transcode a single HEVC stream… And it can’t do it at all. I’ve seen testimonials from other users who explained that they were able to transcode at least one stream without a performance drop with this card.

What also surprises me is seeing the GPU at 3% load during the entire transcoding process when monitoring with nvidia-smi, hence my questioning:

  • Did I miss something in the configuration of Plex (or the OS, or VMWare)?
  • Does my P2000 card have an issue?
  • Would the P2000 card not be the right solution for HEVC streams? Should I then seek out, for instance, a Quadro RTX 4000 (not sure it would work in terms of power supply and form factor)?
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I just ran a different test: trying to transcode the same 4k video to 720p on my iPhone (whereas before I was trying on Safari) and now… No performance issues and I can see the GPU going up to 13 or 14%.

So my configuration is working well, the problem is on Safari’s side…

I will check if there are known issues on Safari, but in any case, I can rule out the Quadro, which seems to be working as expected!

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